The other night I covered a football game up at Meeker. It a rivalry contest between the Bulldogs of Meeker and the Prague Red Devils.
At stake, was the winner taking home the Highway 62 Traveling Trophy.
The trophy is sponsored by Anthony’s Food Stores. The stores are owned by Anthony Buoy and his dad Steve Buoy.
Anthony told me the other evening that Travis Marak and his dairy is also helping now with sponsoring the trophy.
At the conclusion of the game last Friday night, Anthony presented the trophy to the Red Devils. Travis also had a banner that he sponsored, Anthony explained, and that was part of the presentation as well.
In addition to the trophy, medallions will be given to each of the winning players and coaches.
Anthony came up with the idea of the trophy, he said, “because we have our stores in both Meeker and Prague.”
He began sponsoring the trophy in 2019 and Meeker won it that year. In 2020, COVID-19 prevented the two teams from playing the contest.
Now that Prague won it, each team has claimed the bragging rights and the Red Devils are claiming those for the next 12 months.
Anthony played quarterback and linebacker for the Bulldogs from 2005-2007.
I asked him how he came up with the name for the trophy. He spent considerable time trying to come up with a name, he said, adding, “Finally, the idea of the Traveling Trophy came to me after thinking about it for a long, long time.”
It’s been a while since I had covered either a Meeker or Prague football game and it just happened that I was able to cover both of them when they squared off against one another in another rivalry contest.
Having not attended one of their games in such a long time, I was impressed to see the turnout of fans from each community supporting their respective team. Meeker turned out for the Bulldogs and Prague fans made the short trip down Highway 62 to support their Red Devils.
I saw quite a few people I know from the Meeker area and some from Prague as well the other night. I covered the game from the press box through the third quarter. Then I went down during the final period keeping up with the game outside the fence that separates the team from the bleachers.
It was a great night weather-wise for a football game and was good to see so many people there.